In long term evolution (LTE) wireless networks, random access procedure is used for the events including: initial access of a user equipment (UE) into a network; handover of a UE from one base station (Node B) to another base station; arrival of uplink for an uplink non-synchronized UE; arrival of downlink data for an uplink non-synchronized UE; and when there is no dedicated scheduling request channel available. Depending on whether contention is involved, random access procedure is classified into contention based and non-contention based. Contention based random access is applicable for all the events listed above. Non-contention based is only applicable to handover and downlink data arrival. In both cases, random access is based on the transmission of a random access preamble on a random access channel (RACH) by an accessing UE. This allows Node B to estimate, and if needed, adjust the UE transmission time to within a cyclic prefix.